The Ease

Living in a different time, and having different colored skins, Dana and Kevin had to embody new roles in 1819: they could no longer be seen as husband and wife, but as a slaveholder and his slave. Dana described them as “poor actors” who “never really got into [their] roles” and “never forgot that [they] were acting” (Butler 98). This was the means by which they could cope with their different life, but for Dana, her act was challenged when she witnessed the slave children turning the sale of themselves into a game. It was at this moment that “it suddenly became very important that [Kevin] understand” their act, because their attempt at resistance – being pretenders in that foreign time – was failing at preventing them from accepting slavery (98). They could not fight “the ease” that “trained [people] to accept slavery” by merely having a futuristic, just mindset; it required active resistance to maintain their loving union as a biracial couple and their morality as adversaries of racism (101).

Dana explained, “the children broke through my act,” as she recalled the time she watched the young slaves pretend to sell, be sold, and buy each other as a game (Butler 98). This event ‘broke’ Dana’s position as an observer because the game symbolized the acceptance of slavery by the children and the population at large; however, it also brought Kevin’s looming complacency to light. The game reflected on the children’s acceptance of their fate by “preparing them for their future…whether they understand it or not” (99). Dana’s disconcertment was rooted in the children’s ignorance towards the injustice of slavery: though they likely did not ‘understand’ it, they were ‘preparing’ themselves for a life of enslavement, not stopping to question the brutality of it, but only arguing over how much money for which one is sold. Similarly, and more dangerously, Kevin showed signs of complacency towards the game, saying he had “seen them at it before,” leaving it possible that he may have had a similar reaction as Dana’s the first time, but regardless, he had become habituated with their ignorance, thus increasing his own (99). Consequently, he also became more complacent towards slavery, saying, “It’s surprising to me that there’s so little to see,” referring to Weylin’s treatment of the slaves, to which Dana informed him of the whippings (100). Rather than being appalled by such punishment though, he asked, “How many whippings?” which implied that he had begun to accept the social norms of the time, with an “ease” that “frighten[ed]” Dana (100, 101).

However, Kevin was not the only one growing accustomed to the past society’s beliefs; Dana also started to conform to her role as a nineteenth-century slave. Just before the scene with the children, Dana explained her feelings about living in Kevin’s room: “I felt almost as though I really was doing something shameful, happily playing whore for my supposed owner” (Butler 97). Though hints of resistance are seen through phrases such as ‘almost as though’ and ‘supposed owner,’ Dana was beginning to see herself as a slave; she could even feel like a ‘whore’ and not Kevin’s wife. She went on to say, “Kevin and I became more a part of the household, familiar, accepted, accepting… How easily we seemed to acclimatize! …it seemed as though we should have had a harder time adjusting to this particular segment of history – adjusting to our places in the household of a slaveholder” (97). This notion of ‘acceptance’ is what disturbed Dana the most about the game, about Kevin’s reaction, and now about her own attitudes as well. The word ‘acclimatize’ and the repetition of ‘adjusting’ represent the ease of their transition: their immersion into the past did not require a forceful change or transformation, but instead only took gradual tweaking of their characters. Even in ‘this particular segment of history,’ meaning one in which their relationship is illegal and nearly impossible, all they needed was some ‘adjusting’ to become their presentable roles as a slaveholder and slave – and thus it became quite possible that they could forget their true selves, a white husband and black wife in love.

Thus, as Dana says, “It suddenly became very important that [Kevin] understand” their act, because both of them were beginning to allow the corrupted stage of 1819 to become reality, as blindly as the children were accepting their fate as slaves (Butler 98). Though their future reality gave them mindsets as being observers or actors, it was only a temporary fix: “now and then, like with the kids’ game, [Dana] can’t maintain the distance,” and she knew she needed to act, not as an actor anymore, but as a member of that society (101). She and Kevin needed to take action for freedom, like the abolitionists of the past and the future, to change “how easily people could be trained to accept slavery” (101).